Molly
by Brobdingnagian Pseudonym
Summary: A character analysis of everyone's favorite mortician. All she ever wanted was to help people. But that's nearly inpossible when the people you work with are dead


I wrote this because I love Molly but hate how she's written. In the show, her only motivation for letting Sherlock walk all over her is Sherlock needs something to walk on. And I felt there was something better than that in her. So I tried to give her a little more dignity. Enjoy!

Set before a study in pink. So, Sherlock hadn't moved into baker street or met John yet.

The only thing Molly Hooper ever wanted to do with her life is help people. She knew she'd never be the prettiest or the smartest or best at anything and she never wanted to be. Because just being pretty and smart never really helps anyone but yourself. No, if Molly Hooper wanted to be anything, she wanted to be Nice. Nice was selfless. Nice made the rest of the world feel better when it was sick or angry. Even just a little. Nice was nice.

That's why Molly became a doctor. She wanted to save lives. Unfortunately, those who want to save lives the most are the worst at actually doing so. After her bosses and colleagues realized her clumisness would end up killing someone and her bedside manner was incurably bad, the only job in her field that she was capable of handling was in the morgue.

Down in the morgue, poor Molly saw the entire spectrum of human suffering. She cleaned up and autopsied murder victims, suicide victims, accident victims. Victims of knife wounds, gun-shot wounds, poisonings, disease, and the increasingly rare victims of old age. Day after day she stuck her hands into what were once good people and searched around for what made them no longer good people. And she hated it. She knew her job wasn't pleasant and never actually helping anyone, but it had to be done. At least now her patients don't get offended when she means to comfort them.

Then came Sherlock. The tall, dark and handsome man who came sweeping into her life like a storm cloud. Making ridiculous demands for even more ridiculous reasons. Doing... inhumane things to corpses and chopping pieces off to take with him. She'd surely be fired if her bosses knew what she let him do. Not that any of them ever cared what went on in the morgue.

At first she only let him do the things he did out of shock

"_Oh, you actually re-enacted a satanic ritual with the corpse of the pregnant woman... I thought that was a joke."_

Then she let him get away with the things he did because he knew _exactly_ how to smile. Or pout, depending on the occasion.

"_I can't just let you leave that man's ribs hanging from th-... oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-Wait, where are you going?"_

But just once, she got a glimpse of Sherlock's real work. Beyond all the midnight analyses of deadly diseases and demands for worryingly specific disembodied parts. That despite his generally uncaring and self-centered nature, his work is dedicated to keeping innocent people off her slab.

One day, Sherlock had her deliver a set of four left femurs to his studio apartment. As soon as she opened the door she was overwhelmed by murder. There were photographs of it all over the walls and notes about it scattered over the floor. Red ink spattered over his bed in the corner to simulate blood spatter, a dummy tucked neatly under the sheets. She remembers smiling meekly and trying not to look too closely at anything as she stepped inside.

"_I-I don't know how you can sleep with all o-"_

_"There's a serial cannibal on the loose, why would I be sleeping?"_

Now, she never claimed Sherlock was a great person or even a decent person. She never tried to delude herself into believing that he cares whether people live or die. Molly knows very well that Sherlock could've just as easily caused any of the crimes he obsesses over. Yet, every time he barges into her morgue, she notices a decline in knife wound, gunshot wound, or poisoning victims afterwards. Giving in to his every beck and call is the only way she can really help living people when her job is death.


End file.
